V.F.D. - The Baudelaires' Discoveries

The Baudelaires' Discoveries

1. V.F.D. is first mentioned by Duncan Quagmire in The Austere Academy, when he tries to tell Violet something terrible about Count Olaf's past, but can only manage to yell the organization's initials before he's driven away along with Isadora. The initials were V.F.D.. V.F.D. means Volunteer Fire Department.
2. Next, in The Ersatz Elevator, the Baudelaires discover a tunnel from 667 Dark Avenue (the home of Esmé and Jerome Squalor) to the Baudelaire mansion. Esmé is part of the V.F.D.'s fire-starting side, whereas Jerome became a part of the firefighting side sometime after the events in The Ersatz Elevator. Also, in the 'In Auction' the Baudelaires buy 'V.F.D.' but find out that it only stood for 'Very Fancy Doilies' and that this was not the V.F.D. they were looking to find (doilies are very briefly mentioned also in the twelfth book, when the author makes a vague reference to a family that has been scouring the globe for a terribly important doily).
3. In The Vile Village, the Baudelaires are offered a home in a village known only as "V.F.D.". Thinking this may be related to the aforementioned secret, they arrive only to find it stands for Village of Fowl Devotees—not the organization V.F.D. which they seek, although while there they do meet a man named Jacques who appears to be a member of V.F.D.; among other things, he has an eye tattoo identical to the one which Count Olaf has. It is later revealed that all members of V.F.D., at least before a certain period in time, were tattooed with this symbol.
4. In The Hostile Hospital, the Baudelaires meet a group of people who call themselves the Volunteers Fighting Disease, which is, like the Village of Fowl Devotees, not connected to the group they seek. The trio later discover that one person did survive the fire which destroyed their home, possibly one of their parents, as suggested by a sentence written on the 13th page of the Snicket File: "Because of the evidence discussed on page nine, experts now suspect that there may, in fact, be one survivor of the fire", which was accompanied by a photograph of the Baudelaire parents, Jacques Snicket, and a person whose face is turned against the camera,very probably Lemony Snicket.
5. In The Carnivorous Carnival the Baudelaires learn about the disguise kit and are introduced to the eye.
6. It is said that volunteers have passageways built underneath their houses so they can escape to safe places during fires (for instance, a passageway under the Quagmire home leads to Uncle Monty's house, from The Reptile Room, and the elevator shaft in 667 Dark Avenue leads from Esmé Squalor's apartment to the Baudelaire mansion, as seen in The Ersatz Elevator).
7. In The Grim Grotto, Captain Widdershins tells the Baudelaires that V.F.D. started out as a fire department, but eventually expanded to have planes and ships and included many areas of undercover studies.
8. In The Penultimate Peril, the Baudelaires find a person named Dewey Denouement, who was the only one who knew where the sugar bowl is. But Klaus finds out that the sugar bowl ends up in the pond next to Hotel Denouement. When he died, the secret supposedly died with him, although the narrative implies that the bowl was removed by a taxi driver, who is suggested to be Lemony Snicket himself. Clues in the books suggest that the sugar bowl contains horseradish, an antidote for the poisonous fungi medusoid mycelium, but it could also contain wasabi.